The role of traditional and new religious movements in the development of cultural capital of population in post-soviet Russia

The article presents the analysis of the educational activities of Russian religious movements from the mid 80s of the XX century to the present time. The article focuses on the consideration of such controversial modern phenomenon as a New and non-traditional religious movements, the roles that they perform in society and especially their role in the development of cultural capital of Russian population. Also, the role of Russian traditional confessions is shown on the example of the Russian Orthodox Church, which at this time has intensified its activities, not least in education. Opening of schools of different levels and types, a huge publishing work, such social activities as the ROC work in prisons, rehabilitation of ex-prisoners and drug addicts, care for the homeless people, linked with education too - all these activities had a considerable role in development of the population cultural capital in recent decades. The author does not claim establishing of a clear and complete picture because of diversity of religions in Russia and the complexity of these processes, rather it will attempt to cover this issue and present some latent topics of the historical process, not become a prominent part of the public discourse. The material of the article in addition to the literature review is also based on the empirical data. These are observations and depth semi-structured interviews, which were conducted in the last decade in modern religious movements in Russia. Contact with the study object gives a rich understanding of the role and place of some practices in the lives of the people who demonstrate their functionality at their examples. Also there was made the content analysis of different documentary sources, which included brochures, posters and leaflets of the religious movements, portals and pages in the Internet space. This allows you to see how such an Association participated in the formation of cultural capital of the population in the most different forms. These are the educational event for participants of religious movements, missionary activity, publication of religious literature, in the last decade - the active filling of religious, near-religious, parascientific, esoteric information in such media as the Internet and television. A special role was played by the educational courses and programs of religious associations, which gave after the training diplomas and certificates with the right to teaching the «spiritual science», healing practices etc. This small study shows the role of various social groups that have an impact on the history of some processes, but their functions are not meaningful due to the fact that the hidden discourse was not considered, as this was understood by M. Foucault.

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